President Donald Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge on Friday once again spurned Donald Trump’s effort to erase his hush money conviction, rejecting the president’s bid to move the state court case to federal court and have it dismissed on presidential immunity grounds.

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein reiterated his earlier finding against Trump, saying that the reasons Trump cited for renewing his request were “neither new nor legally sufficient.”

The judge added: “He has failed to show good cause and diligence.”

It is the third time Hellerstein has blocked Trump from having the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize control of the case from the New York court where he was tried and convicted.

And, like before, Trump will appeal, according to a spokesperson for his legal team who called Hellerstein's ruling “baseless and lawless.”

“The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be removed to federal court, and immediately overturned and dismissed,” a statement issued on behalf of the legal team said. "President Trump will be filing a powerful appeal, and will continue defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn.”

The guilty verdict, reached in May 2024 while Trump was between terms, made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. Trump is also challenging his conviction through the state court appellate process, which is pending.

Hellerstein’s decision came after a federal appeals court last year ordered him to reconsider his prior denial. The judge previewed his ruling during oral arguments in February, slamming Trump’s lawyers for legal maneuvers that amounted to taking “two bites at the apple.”

State prosecutors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose claim of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier had threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump was sentenced to an unconditional discharge, which left his conviction intact but spared him any punishment. He had long denied Daniels’ claim and said he did nothing wrong. He has sought to get the conviction overturned both by attempting to move the case to federal court and through the appeals process in state court, which is pending.

Hellerstein rejected Trump’s requests to move the case twice before. The first was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment. The second was after Trump’s trial, as his lawyers sought to nix his conviction in the wake of the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling that presidents and ex-presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts and prosecutors can’t use official acts as evidence that unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump appealed Hellerstein’s post-trial ruling and, last November, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge to reconsider his decision, finding that he had failed to consider “important issues relevant” to the president’s request to move the case.

A three-judge appellate panel said it expressed no view on how he should rule but instructed Hellerstein to closely review evidence that Trump claimed was related to official acts and whether Trump could argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties.

The judges also instructed Hellerstein to determine if Trump had “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

During oral arguments in February, Hellerstein took issue with the Trump legal team’s decision-making after the Supreme Court ruling.

Instead of immediately seeking to move the case to federal court, he noted, Trump’s lawyers first asked the trial judge in state court, Juan Merchan, to throw out the verdict on immunity grounds. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. has ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Trump, a Republican, did not attend the arguments.

Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and that Trump’s legal team was crunched for time after the high court’s ruling because his sentencing was scheduled for just 10 days later.

Trump’s lawyers did not ask Hellerstein to intervene until nearly two months later, while their request to Merchan was still pending. The judge called that a “strategic decision” and suggested that by going to the state court first, Trump’s lawyers cost him the right to pursue remedies in federal court.

“No, your honor,” Wall replied. “It is what any sensible litigant would do” in that situation.

“Not so,” Hellerstein replied.

“That is a decision on your part,” the judge added. “You didn’t have to do that. You could have come right to the federal court. Just by filing a notice of removal, there would be no sentencing.”

Trump’s lawyers “made a choice,” Hellerstein said, “and you sought two bites at the apple.”

In his written ruling Friday, Hellerstein said Trump was asking for a “'second bite at the apple,' a result the law disfavors.”

The judge added that “Trump’s delay in filing for removal constitutes a ‘quintessential strategic decision,’ and the ‘fact that he later came to view that decision as a poor one is not sufficient, by itself, to establish cause.’”

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Artemis II crew members, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting Friday while expectations rise for the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates soon to get the nation's high inflation under control.

The S&P 500 was virtually unchanged after flipping between modest gains and losses through the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 74 points, or 0.1%, as of noon Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.

The bond market had more of a reaction following Kevin Warsh's first time speaking as chairman of the Fed at an annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The mountain setting has been the backdrop for major Fed policy announcements in the past, and the pressure was on Warsh.

Worries had grown that his tough talk about getting inflation down to the Fed's 2% target may be just that, unless the Fed backs it up with action. The Fed could hike short-term interest rates to get inflation under control, but it could also feel deterred from doing so because that would slow the economy and hurt prices for investments. And President Donald Trump, who appointed Warsh, has been vocal about wanting interest rates to be lower rather than higher.

Warsh was adamant again on Friday that he wants to give financial markets fewer clues about what the Fed plans to do with rates for its two jobs of keeping inflation low and the job market strong. He has said he wants markets to react to what incoming data says about the economy and inflation rather than what the Fed says.

But Warsh also said Friday that “short-term interest rates are the predominant tool” for the Fed to do its job. And he said, “I would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive,” an implication that short-term interest rates may not be high enough to tamp down the economy and inflation.

The yield on the two-year Treasury, which closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with its federal funds rate, jumped to 4.32% from 4.22% just before the speech.

Traders are betting on a nearly 60% probability the Fed will hike its federal funds rate as soon as next month, up from the 35% probability they saw a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.

Longer-term yields, which move more on expectations of what the economy and inflation will do in upcoming years, were mixed. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.70% from 4.67% late Thursday.

The 30-year Treasury yield was at 5.19%, where it was late Thursday. Lower long-term yields could indicate bond investors see less of a threat of high inflation in far-out years, but both the 10- and 30-year yields were zigzagging immediately after Warsh began his speech.

Yields had gotten so high during the summer for those longer-term bonds that the U.S. Treasury Department made an unusual move last week and said it would buy back more bonds, though analysts said it will likely have only a limited effect.

“The problem with the Warsh approach to monetary policy is that it could collide with the Treasury’s interventions in the bond market,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management.

Warsh said Friday he prefers to use short-term interest rates to do the Fed's job when he called them its “predominant tool,” rather than buying bonds and adding them to the Fed's holdings like it's often done since the 2008 financial crisis.

On Wall Street, Gap jumped 13.5% after the retailer reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also said Michael Francis, an industry veteran who began his career on the retail sales floor, will take over as head of its Old Navy stores.

Marvell Technology fell 10.2% even though the chip company reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that edged past analysts’ expectations. CEO Matt Murphy said its business related to artificial-intelligence technology is strong, and it raised its forecasts for upcoming revenue growth.

But analysts said much of that optimism may have already been baked into Marvell’s stock price, which came into the day with a surge of 184% for the year so far.

After rocketing higher for years because of the frenzy around AI, stocks across the industry are confronting skepticism that they shot too high and that booming demand for AI chips may fade if the AI revolution does not produce as much profit as promised.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.8%, and France’s CAC 40 rose 1% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

AP Business Writers Michelle Chapman and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh arrives at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, in Moran, Wyo. (AP Photo/Amber Baesler)

Specialist James Denaro works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Options trader Matthew Hefter works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics Co. stock price at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)